- November 3, 2021
- 7:00pm CDT
- Online Event
Inventing the Thrifty Gene
The Science of Settler Colonialism
Inventing the Thrifty Gene exposes the exploitative nature of settler science with Indigenous subjects, the flawed scientific theories stemming from faulty assumptions of Indigenous decline and disappearance, as well as the severe inequities in Canadian health care that persist even today.
Join author Travis Hay alongside contributor to the book’s afterword Teri Redsky Fiddler and host Niigaanwewidam Sinclair for the launch of Inventing the Thrifty Gene!
Send questions or comments to [email protected].
Though First Nations communities in Canada have historically lacked access to clean water, affordable food, and equitable health care, they have never lacked access to well-funded scientists seeking to study them. Inventing the Thrifty Gene examines the relationship between science and settler colonialism through the lens of “Aboriginal diabetes” and the thrifty gene hypothesis, which posits that Indigenous peoples are genetically predisposed to type 2 diabetes and obesity due to their alleged hunter-gatherer genes. In this book, Hay exposes the exploitative nature of settler science with Indigenous subjects, the flawed scientific theories stemming from faulty assumptions of Indigenous decline and disappearance, as well as the severe inequities in Canadian health care that persist even today.
Presenters
Travis Hay is a historian of Canadian settler colonialism who was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario. He is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Indigenous Learning Department at Lakehead University.
Theresa (Teri) Redsky Fiddler is an Anishinabe Elder originally from Big Grassy and Shoal Lake First Nation. She is an educator, an advocate, and an important figure in Nishnawbe Aski Nation’s Health Transformation initiative.
Niigaanwewidam James Sinclair is Anishinaabe (St. Peter’s/Little Peguis) and an Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba. He is an award-winning writer, editor and activist who was named one of Monocle Magazine‘s “Canada’s Top 20 Most Influential People” and he won the 2018 Canadian columnist of the year at the National Newspaper Awards for his bi-weekly columns in The Winnipeg Free Press. In 2019 he won Peace Educator of the Year from the Peace and Justice Studies Association based at Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He is an international media commentator as a part of the “Power Panel” on CBC’s Power & Politics and National Affairs panel on CBC’s The Current. He is also a former secondary school teacher who has trained educators and students across Canada.
